Organization and Management
Critique of Scholarly Article
Weick, K. E., & Putnam, T. (2006). Organizing for Mindfulness: Eastern wisdom and Western knowledge.
Journal of Management Inquiry, 15(3), 275-287.
Change is always been and aspect of the human world. Right from the earlier days of the evolution of human race, the work of the people is changing dramatically and rapidly. They were beneficial sometimes and problematic on the other. But today the world of work seems to be more complicated and problematic. It has resulted in an increased level of anxiety and distraction resulting to uncertainty in people’s life. And so there is a need to be thoughtful about the work and the possible ways to tackle it in an effective way (Jacobs & Bllustein, 2008).
Summary
Weick, K. E., and Putnam, T. (2006), in their article, “Organizing for Mindfulness: Eastern Wisdom and Western Knowledge”, gives an insight of one of the most enriched view of dealing with work and self by respecification of our attention to the cultural aspects of mindfulness and thereby to integrate it with day-to-day life and help in organizational well being.
Based on their experience and thorough research in the field of psychology and organizational behaviour and referring the scholarly articles and religious scriptures, the authors explain mindfulness with regards to the eastern and western beliefs. Considering the eastern wisdom and western knowledge, the authors construct the essay in a simple and understandable way. Firstly they define eastern and western perspectives of mindfulness and their organizational experiences and then after generalizing both of the though different perspectives to a single and interconnected view to practise and understand mindfulness and acting accordingly to achieve self and organizational goals.
Strengths
Mindfulness is laid on the foundation of introspective awareness of: body, feelings, consciousness, and mental objects and the most effective and reliable way to deal with and stronger the attention is to develop virtue, concentration, and mindfulness concurrently. It is also a act of conscious awareness in every moment and to have a meaning in each and everything we do including our daily life activities such as breathing or washing hands (Pio, E, 2005).
The authors point out the similarities of western perspectives to the eastern non-conceptualization by relating the studies of Brown and Ryan (2003) to the Thera’s work on eastern wisdom. The enhanced attention and awareness in western philosophy corresponds to focus in eastern world. Similarly current experience and present reality corresponds to attending that is calm, quiet. Thus mindfulness can be defined as attention to one’s own reactions to some actions and also to the external factors in organizations. It is an implicit factor present at every moment in time (Narayanan & Moynihan, 2006).
Taking into consideration the High Reliability Organisations such as air traffic control systems, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, hospitals would be generally seen as the one based on conceptualization. But there are the insights always present while focusing on concepts. The five process of mindfulness based on concepts as shown in the article, are an indirect implications of the qualities given by Gunaratana (2002) (Hesselbein & Johnston, 2002).
Weakness
Although the authors have very well explained the eastern perspectives on mindfulness based on the Buddhism, they lack to have grounds of other religious views on mindfulness. They should also have included the Indo-Tibetian views as from where the Buddhism has originally developed. As the Indian perspective to human nature and mindfulness points out the removal of the state of ignorance(avidya) and develop a feeling of freedom and joy by experiencing beingness and having a insight of self.
The authors have not explored the importance of including emotions and feelings in accordance to mindfulness and organizational success and have only focused on commitment. Because organizations while undergoing success and expansion hardly recognise the value of feelings and emotions and their role in working lives of the employees as well as at the collective levels. Feelings and emotions have a direct correlation and influence on the motivation and demotivation of individual to organizations, their commitment towards the firm and the level of stress and conflicts in organizations (K�pers & Weibler, 2008).
Wisdom is another aspect where the authors have just referred to as only the practise of meditation and mindfulness and have neglected the reactions of people to the aspects. They have more focused on conceptualizing whereas wisdom can be defined as the reflective action of affection and cognitive abilities to the tasks and problems of everyday life and is seen as an integrative aspect of a human life. Thus differentiating it from the suggested practise of individual operating in isolation and undergoing meditation, wisdom is a relative knowledge gained by interaction with society and knowing the cultural dimensions in the society. Conceptualism or personalisation approaches does not define the wisdom to the fullest and In fact we should be considering the phenomenological understanding of wisdom relating organizations and thereby not comprehending the nature of the wisdom (K�pers, 2008).
Conclusion
Buddhist psychology and philosophy of mind suggests the need of understanding the fundamental nature of mind to be more optimistic. The pervasive influence of how we perceive ourselves indirectly affects the society and world at large. So there is a vital need of embracing a ethical and conceptual human nature rather than just concentrating on one aspect (Watson, Batchelor, & Claxton, 2000). This framework of combining the eastern wisdom with western knowledge is irresistible in order to build a more competent organization where mindfulness is laid on the foundation of concepts and meditation (K�pers, 2008).
References
Hesselbein, F., & Johnston, R. (2002). On High-Performance Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Jacobs, S., & Bllustein, D. (2008, Dec Mon). Mindfulness as a Coping Mechanism for Employment Uncertainty. The Career Development Quarterly , 57, p. 176.
K�pers, W. (2007) ‘Phenomenology and Integral Pheno-Practice of Wisdom in Leadership and Organization’, Social Epistemology, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp.169-193.
K�pers, W. and Weibler, J.(2008) ‘Emotions in organisation: an integral perspective’, Int. J. Work Organisation and Emotion, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp.256-287.
Narayanan, J., & Moynihan, L. (2006). Mindfulness at Work: The Beneficial Effects on Job Burbout in Call centres. Academy of Management Proceedings, (pp. H1-H6). London.
Pio, E. (2005). Eastern karma: Perspectives on corporate citizenship. Journal Of Corporate Citizenship, 19, 65
Watson, G., Batchelor, S., & Claxton, G. (2000). The Psychology of Awakening. Boston: Weiser Books, pp.21-22.
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